we e-mailed a copy for him over in paris. he said, where is the bill of rights? the answer was, there is no bill of rights. every people on earth is entitled by nature to a bill of rights which protect them against their government. this foreshadowed a problem. george mason was one of the members of the virginia delegation. he had written the declaration of the rights for the state of virginia in 1776. it was a few months before jefferson wrote the declaration of independence. when the convention was over, mason, who was a member of the virginia delegation, was a member of the virginia delegation, would not sign the constitution. washington was infuriated. so came about one of the great informal agreements in american legal history. there was an agreement that if the constitution ratified as written by 1787 convention, there would be a bill of rights. so we had a bill of rights in 1791. we have a hamiltonian structure and a jeffersonian bill of rights. one of the principal structures is separation of powers and checks and balances. we use those terms often interc